The Times

The former boss of BT is working on a secret private equity-backed takeover bid for the FTSE 100 pest control empire Rentokil Initial, The Sunday Times can reveal. Philip Jansen is in talks with private equity firms over a plan that would see him installed as executive chairman of the faltering company, which issued a profit warning last October and saw the activist investor Nelson Peltz disclose a position as a top-ten investor last month. Rentokil has struggled since its $6.7 billion acquisition of American rival Terminix in 2022. The deal gave the combined business a 30% market share in the US but led to integration problems, including duplications on the routes that Rentokil’s drivers take when carrying out extermination work

The mother of a graduate who went missing five months ago after leaving a house party in Bristol is still searching areas of land with her bare hands which the police have not touched and describes her family’s treatment by the force as “beyond the pale”. Jack O’Sullivan, 23, vanished on March 2 after leaving a house party in the Hotwells area of the city, close to the River Avon, that he attended with new friends from his law conversion course. CCTV cameras captured him walking alone at 2.57am before other cameras around the harbour appear to show him lost or unsure where to go, as he walked back on himself twice around the city’s harbourside

Summer has finally got under way as the UK recorded its hottest day of the year on Friday with temperatures reaching 31C. The heatwave broke the year’s record so far after what seemed a period of endless cool and grey weather for most of July. Friday also saw the majority of schools in England and Wales close for the summer. However, sun lovers will be disappointed as the Met office said the weather would change again this weekend

As the red-brick streets of Harehills in Leeds sweltered under the hottest day of the year so far, residents gathered around the charred carcass of a bus. After rioters wrecked a police car and set a bus ablaze, locals worked to put it out and helped the family at the centre of it. Will the area ever be the same?

For Lauren Wilson, part of the appeal of welding is visceral. It’s “a bit like small dog syndrome”, she says. “You want to do the loudest, heaviest, noisiest and most dangerous things possible while being a woman.” Wilson, 34, is one of a growing number of women who are taking up welding, bucking the trend across the wider construction industry. Four decades after Flashdance told the tale of a dancer toiling in a Pittsburgh steel mill, the number of women working in welding and metal-forming industries in Britain rose by nearly 70% between 2021 and 2023

Millions of public sector workers including teachers and nurses should be given above-inflation pay rises, ministers have been told in a move that will put significant pressure on public finances and could lead to clashes with unions. The Times has been told that independent pay review bodies representing 514,000 teachers and 1.36m NHS workers have both recommended pay rises of about 5.5%. The pay rises are significantly more than the 3% the government budgeted for and create a significant headache before Rachel Reeves’s first budget

Wowcher has agreed to refund £4m to customers and has promised to abandon some of its high-pressure marketing techniques after moves by the consumer watchdog against “sneaky sales tactics” by some companies. The online deals platform has given undertakings to the Competition and Markets Authority to stop website gambits that mislead customers into believing that stock is running out and thus to rush them into a purchase decision. It will also make repayments to more than 870,000 customers who may have been signed up unknowingly to its VIP service because the box for agreeing to the £4.99 fee was pre-ticked on its website

The premium that shoppers are paying for “free-from” foods varies sharply between supermarkets, raising questions about whether people with allergies are getting value for money. Sainsbury’s adds the biggest mark-up, at 65% on average, according to research that compared the cost of gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free products with their standard equivalent. By comparison, such products at Asda are only 25% more expensive. The free-from products at Sainsbury’s are also the most expensive outright, costing nearly a third more than at the cheapest chain, Asda

Weight-loss injections and appetite-suppressing drugs have become the go-to solutions for the wealthy, promising rapid slimming. However, these quick fixes can come with dangerous side effects such as disordered eating and psychological dependence. Consequently, those who opted to use the weight loss drugs, are increasingly finding themselves in residential treatment centres, according to the clinics, swapping one high-cost treatment for another in an attempt to undo the damage

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